majority of the voters--are unrepresented. This
is an extreme case, and has not often been allowed to happen. But the
only means of preventing it is the "ward boss." The boss emerges from
the situation as inevitably as the survival of the fittest. And the
fittest is the Irishman. The Irishman has above all races the mixture of
ingenuity, firmness, human sympathy, comradeship, and daring that makes
him the amalgamator of races. He conciliates them all by nominating a
ticket on which the offices are shrewdly distributed; and out of the
Babel his "slate" gets the majority.

The boss's problem is not an easy one. His ward may contain business men
on the hill and negroes along the canal. To nominate a business man
would lose the negro vote--to nominate a negro would lose the business
vote. He selects a nondescript somewhere between, and discards him for
another at the next election. The representative becomes a tool in the
hands of the boss. The boss sells his power to corporations, franchise
speculators, and law-evaders. Representative democracy becomes
bossocracy in the service of plutocracy. The ward system worked well
when the suffrage was limited. Then the business men elected their
business man unimpeded. But a system devised for restricted suffrage
breaks down under universal suffrage. Could the ward lines be abolished,
could the business men come together regardless of residence and elect
their choice without the need of a majority vote, could the negroes and
other races and classes do the same, then each would be truly
represented by their natural leaders. So it is, not only in cities, but
in county, state, and nation. Universal suffrage, clannish races, social
classes, diversified interests, seem to explain and justify the presence
of the party "machine" and its boss. Otherwise races, classes, and
interests are in helpless conflict and anarchy. But the true explanation
is an obsolete ward and district system of plurality representation
adopted when but one race, class, or interest had the suffrage. Forms of
government are the essence of government, notwithstanding the poet. An
aristocratic form with a democratic suffrage is a plutocratic
government. Belgium and Switzerland have shown that a democratic form
is possible and practicable. Proportional representation instead of
district representation is the corollary of universal suffrage which
those countries have worked out as a model for others.[106] The model is
pe